Harold Bauer - His Book

HAROLD BAUER- HIS BOOK. Preface: I NEVER INTENDED TO WRITE THE STORY OF MY LIFE, AND I neither know nor care whether I shall be believed when I say that this writing has been the most abominable and tedious chore that I ever undertook What happened is this: my very dear and distinguished friend, the late Carl Engel, president of G. Schirmer, Inc., wished to pay me a compliment on the occasion of my sev entieth birthday. Since he had always been amused by my relation of little incidents in my long career, he got me to write some of them down, then put them together with inimitable skill and charm, and published the result in the Musical Quarterly. This created a great deal of comment, and the next thing was that Warder Norton asked me to write a whole book about myself. I rejected his suggestion with horror, but I went to tea with him and his wife, and, as a consequence of their skillful and delicate flattery, I was undone. Even so, the book would never have been completed without the gentle and incessant nagging of my wife. The time has come for me to express my acknowledg ments to everyone concerned in this perpetration, and I hereby do so, peevishly, with the fervent hope that they will all leave me alone in future. It remains only for me to add, now that I notice the curiously abrupt fashion in which this book starts, that I was born near London on April 28, 1873. H. B. MY EARLIEST REACTION TO MUSIC, AS FAR AS I CAN RECALL, was one of fascinated terror. Even at this far-distant time, it almost makes my flesh creep when I think of the huge faces of adults bending over me, or over one of my sisters, and emitting the strange sound which, I was later to learn, is called singing. The music was not confined to noises coming from human faces, however, for there was also the unfor gettable sound solemn and yet piercing of the shiny brass instruments played in the street by a group of shabby men called the German Band. In addition, there was the Italian barrel-organ grinder, accompanied sometimes oh, bliss! by a monkey; an occasional violinist; a man who played a bright yellow clarinet; two men in Highland cos tume, one of whom danced to the playing of the bagpipes ( the most exciting sound in the world, I think) by his com panion. Then the music of the street cries ( Chinaware cheap and Jubilee Coal Blocks provided the themes, later on, [ 9] for a juvenile sonata), and finally, the god of musicians, a glorious individual who went about with a dozen different instruments distributed over his person, playing them all at the same time. That, to me, was real magic; and I longed unspeakably to grow up and conquer my fear of the sounds, so that I could wield the power he possessed some day! I suppose it was this mingled feeling of fear and ambition that made me try to find the notes of a tune which had alarmed me to the extent of wanting to hide under the table. After I had picked out the notes, I did not mind it so much. It was the opening of Brahms' piano quintet, and I am still a little afraid of it.